Blog #2

Did You Know? 3.0 - A John Strange 2012 Version 
  After watching both the original and Professor Stranges' version of "Did You Know?" I became very frightful that the world I am in now will be radically different once I enter the academic community. We all remember watching cartoons where they showed a future of robots, lasers and seeing computers in every place on earth. But, how many times did we really sit down and wonder "could this really happen in my own life time?" We are now at the moment where what we thought was make-believe is becoming a normal part of everyday life. What makes it worse is that our children in the United States may not be ready for what is coming. Both films stated the same facts: the sheer amount of technology available is staggering and the ease that we can obtain and share information is so great that what we are learning now will outdated before we can even teach it to others, let alone graduate. There has been a constant flow of knowledge that man has tried to further with each new discovery, language and action that now we have reached the end of this river and stand before a mighty ocean that we may never fully understand. And, it is this unknown that frightens me the most because if I see it I think "what a great adventure" but when I see children at its shore I wonder "are they ready or will they drown?".
  The last question that Professor Strange presented at the end of his own version was "are you ready to be an educator?" and honestly I do not know if I am ready. At the beginning of this, I kept thinking "I know how I'll teach this subject," or "I can't wait to help plan the book fairs around what they are learning that month." My mind swirls with ideas like guest speakers, small group projects, and science fair projects, but having been introduced to these videos, I just do not know if I am ready. It is one thing to be in charge of taking care of your niece or nephew, a friend's child or helping out at a day care, but to be in charge of teaching about thirty children for one-hundred-eighty days and be expected to get them ready for the next grade, for life in general, is terrifying. Today, I will be expected to learn and relearn material that will, before my students can even have the chance to use it, become obsolete and replaced with another system I am to learn and teach again and again and again. Thanks to that video, I wonder if I am even qualified to teach a single child. Part of me envies the teachers of two-hundred, one-hundred or even fifty years ago because what they taught did change over time but the changes were very small. But, I have hope because the children that they taught in the past have grown up to bring about these magnificent changes and advancements. I realize the job ahead of me is big, but I am always ready for a new challenge. And, I am not ashamed to say that I am looking forward to learning and teaching myself new information to keep myself current so I can help my students forge a path through this abundance of information at their fingertips. 

Mr. Winkle Wakes by Mathew Needleman
  Mr. Winkle is like a modern-day version of the popular Rip Van Winkle. Instead of waking up to find all that he had known to be changed after the American Revolution, he awakes in our own time and wanders around to see its mysteries. First, he visits an office and is perplexed by the "strange sounds" that fill its rooms, the boxes that give you paper with images on them and screens that allow one to talk to another person on the other side of the world. Feeling confused and unwell by this on-slot of changes, he sought a hospital but soon became frightened by what he saw: men and women being kept alive by machines that breath for them and lasers being used in operations in ways that he never thought possible. Realizing that this place would not make him better, he wandered off again until he came across a children's school and went inside to see how much it too had changed. Hour after hour, he watched as a teacher stood in front of the room and lectured to the students who would then write notes, just as he did in school when he was their age; he did see a computer in the room but it was covered in dust and no one used it. Upon leaving, he stated that "it was comforting to know that even after one-hundred years that some things still remain the same." Here, the outside world never entered the classrooms and Mr. Winkle liked it. The video is very true and, when you think about the "Did You Know?" video, its very sad to think that in the span of one-hundred years every piece of life has changed except for the education system.
  I remember on my first day of college, after I had just been giving a laptop from my parents, having my first professor say that "all forms of technology were banned from his classroom." He said that education was different from technology and that in order for us to learn we did not need its "help" to distract us. For lack of better words, I thought that he was nuts. How can we, meaning both the professor and the students, be surrounded by technology everyday and then be told to cast them aside when it comes to education? From apps on where the local bus stations are to verbal translations so we can understand others of another language to cars built to protect both us and the environment, we have made technology a part of our lives. To continue to try to sever this connection is ludicrous. Instead of teachers and professors spending their time trying to separate 21st-century knowledge from 19th-century teaching systems, we need to use it to explain the world on a different scale or, just as in the reading assignment, we will lose our students and they will choose to not learn. While thinking about what to write, I kept asking myself what made me want to read, write and learn as a child, which followed me to adolescence and right away I knew the answer: it was because a teacher used what I liked to explain what we were learning and showed me that there was more outside my own world to discover. That is the type of teacher we need to be and the only way is to accept what was is not working any more and try to use what the students like - be it movies, games, books and even other subjects to show them the beauty of learning if we are to prepare them for the future. 

Sir Ken Robinson: The Importance of Creativity
  Sir Ken Robinson is right on all parts -  the main goal of education when we were children was to get us ready for jobs in the real world and any things of free thought, be it music, dancing or singing, are seen as useless. We were told not to worry or put much effort into them since we would not have a future in such fields and that we needed to pick a more practical means to earn a living. I once had a friend named Jacob who was the best artist in the school, but in four short years he went from a bright artist in middle school to a common, everyday student in high school who worried more about grades and less about his passion. Using Ken Robinson's words, he was "educated out of creativity" and I believe that the world is worse because of it. The longer I was in school, the more and more I saw this happening just as Ken Robinson said: children were taught math and reading first, humanities second and the rest, meaning art, music, dance and drama, was pushed to the side. But I did my best to hold on to my love for the arts and, just like the young girl who told that the reason she won't sit still was that she was a dancer, I had others who told me to use what I loved in all that I did or it would not have meaning for me. But the best advice was from my mom and sisters, who everyday told me that even if others don't agree with the results I was to always do my best. 
 The best example I can share of this happened when I changed my major to Criminal Justice. Our first paper was to explain the concepts and theories of any part of the first chapter and I chose people who became vigilantes to either protect others or seek vengeance on their enemies. Most would have chosen a famous court case with lots of media attention or a book they had to read in high school and still had notes on them but I used comic books and videos games instead. I said that sometimes vigilantes were the "good guys" who could help others that the police could not get it, like Batman or Superman, and that while yes some take to such extremes that they are viewed as a villain, like the Red Mask, that we need them. They, like Assassins Creed, were needed to help clean up what the justice system could not stop on their own and to destroy them was to destroy the last hope some have for the world. When it came time for the papers to be returned, the professor stated that while many papers were very good  there was one, she did not say their name, that was the most unique in their examples and what they thought on the subject had heart. I began to be sick thinking that mine was none of the ones she talked about until I got my paper and saw her note that stated she loved how I used all types of example to back up my views, that none of them were from the same genre and that I did a very good job. Ken Robinson was right when he said that "if you're not prepare to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original." That day, I began my journey to somewhere that I would be happy with what I did and where I would use those same words of encouragement to show that we learn more from our mistakes than the world's victories. 

Pinterest: Using Available Resources
  Since the beginning of Pintrest, my sisters, aunts, cousins and my own mom have been a part of it and have used its pages to plan weddings, baby showers, share recipes and even help with ideas for their classrooms. Until we were told to truly investigate it and all that it has to offer, I never really thought that Pintrest had a place in the classroom. How could a place were my mom looks for dinner ideas and my sisters find ways to decorate their baby's room help with education? Now I know how wrong I was and that long after I have left this school I will be using this site to help my students. Of The 20 Best Pinterest Boards About Education Technology, I found four that I would use the most, not only for the ways that they use technology in their own classrooms, but how they present it to future teachers as well. The first is Patricia Brown. Her main focus is not only how to use the IPad in the classroom and its benefits with her own students, but videos of what she has done with her IPad and her top apps to use. My favorite was the animation app where she made a short video to teach about Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. The second is Debbie Fucoloro and her Pintrest page is perfect for beginning teachers who want to incorporate technology into the classroom. Here she gives tips on creating blogs, videos and how-to guides/guide lines for writing blogs and leaving comments which I have already begun to use.
  The third is Rachel Friedrich has the full collection of Bill Nye the Science Guy, Magic School Bus and Reading Rainbow to use in your classroom as well guides to using twitter, webcams and fun timers for the kids. My favorite was the rocket where its fuse grew shorter as time ran out until the clock reached 00:00:00, shot off into the sky and exploded with the words "You're Finished" shining on the screen as if it was a real firework. The fourth and final board I wish to use in my classroom is by Education World, mainly because he or she uses parts of the world that the kids like to show the science sides of it in a fun way. One link was about how Harry Potters' invisibility cloak now has become a reality with news of one very similar being tested. Also, researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have found a way to make water droplets to float in mid air. He even shows a download for the smart board called "music box" where dozens of colored dots dance around the screen and explained he or she uses it in the morning when the class is about to come so that they students rush quietly to the classroom and are quiet when it begins.